260 DISSERTATION OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 
Drs. Joule and Playfair infer, and the now recognised in- 
fluence of time and contact, tend to hint, a similar idea. 
Their consideration opens up a view from which we are led 
to infer the existence either of modifications of known laws, 
or other laws unrecognised and perhaps unrecognisable. 
Assuredly there are hidden causes constantly engaged — as 
in a bent spring — eliminating new forms, and so masking 
the work performed by those laws which belong to the pro- 
vince of that which is seen or felt. Physical forces, con- 
cerning which we have ambiguous hints only, are, w 7 e can 
scarcely doubt, mighty instruments of power in the great 
laboratory of Nature. The relation of time to chemical 
change is doubtless an element of this kind. Thus, for 
instance, felspar cannot be crystallised without preserving 
the requisite heat for several weeks. Infinitude of time, like 
a sw r addling cloth, enveloped the first-fruits of Nature’s 
womb. 
Such thoughts should be kept in mental view 7 while essay- 
ing to sift a problem like that under consideration. No 
doubt the protean changes, chemical and mechanical, of the 
primordial atmosphere, w 7 ere greatly aided by imponderables 
in degrading rock-like substances. Appearances bespeak 
early disintegration w 7 hich could not fail to be accelerated 
by expansion and contraction consequent upon chemical 
changes. 
The experiments of the Professors Rodgers have affirma- 
tively shown carbonic acid to be capable of dissolving such 
bodies as granite, proverbially a symbol of stability. Mr. 
Strangways noticed several marked examples of such action 
in Finland, and illustrations in other lands are bv no means 
rare. Lime itself may be, here, regarded as insoluble in 
water, and the carbonate is still more so. But a double 
atom of carbonic acid imparts solubility. Rose has shown 
that most bicarbonates, including that of lime, lose their 
excess of carbonic acid, leaving insoluble carbonates, on 
slight application of heat. Evidently, therefore, a heated 
ocean could not form soluble bicarbonates, or dissolve pre- 
existent ones. Basing our deductions upon chemical facts, 
we are hence driven to the conclusion, adopting the views of 
Leibnitz and Fourier concerning heat, that after the internal 
heat of the globe w 7 as lowered so as to allow aqueous action 
upon the subsiding crystalline masses, the reduction con- 
tinued until a temperature not exceeding 100° F. belonged 
to the sea. Otherwise we may conceive, and without stretch 
of the imagination, the formation and deposition of earthy 
carbonates to have been effected locally and at various times 
